Without Fail (44 page)

"Later," Reacher said. "Fire us later. Give us the rest of the day."

"Why?"

"We need to talk to Armstrong. Just me and Neagley."

"About what?"

"About something important," Reacher said. Then he went quiet again.

"The thing we talked about this morning?" Neagley asked him.

"No, the thing that was on my mind last night."

"Something not there, something not done?"

He shook his head. "It was something not said."

"What wasn't said?"

He didn't answer. Just gathered up both envelopes and slid them back along the tabletop. Stuyvesant stopped them dead with the flat of his hand. Picked them up and held them, uncertain.

"I can't let you talk to Armstrong without me," he said.

"You'll have to," Reacher said. "It's the only way he'll talk at all."

Stuyvesant said nothing. Reacher glanced at him. "Tell me about the mail system. How long have you been checking Armstrong's mail?"

"From the start," Stuyvesant said. "Since he was picked as the candidate. That's absolutely standard procedure."

"How does it work?"

Stuyvesant shrugged. "It's easy enough. At first the agents at his house opened everything delivered there and we had a guy at the Senate Offices opening the stuff that went there and a guy in Bismarck looking after the local items. But after the first couple of messages we centralized everything right here for convenience."

"But everything always got passed on to him except for the threats?"

"Obviously."

"You know Swain?"

"The researcher? I know him a little."

"You should promote him. Or give him a bonus. Or a big kiss on the forehead. Because he's the only person around here with an original idea in his head. Us included."

"What's his idea?"

"We need to see Armstrong. As soon as possible. Me and Neagley, alone. Then we'll consider ourselves fired and you'll never see us again. And you'll never see Bannon again, either. Because your problem will be over a couple of days later."

Stuyvesant put both envelopes back in his jacket. It was the day after Thanksgiving and Armstrong was in self imposed exile from public affairs, but arranging a meeting with him was intensely problematic. Straight after the morning meeting Stuyvesant promoted one of Froelich's original six male rivals to replace her, and the guy was full of all kinds of macho now-we-can-do-this-properly bullshit. He kept it firmly under control in front of Stuyvesant because of sensitivity issues, but he threw up every kind of obstacle he could find. The main stumbling block was a decades-old rule that no protectee can be alone with visitors without at least one protection agent present.

Reacher saw the logic in that. Even if they were strip-searched for weapons he and Neagley could have completely dismembered Armstrong in about a second and a half. But they had to meet alone. That was vital. Stuyvesant was reluctant to overrule the new team leader on his first day, but eventually he quoted the Pentagon security clearances and decreed that the presence of two agents immediately outside the door would be sufficient. Then he called Armstrong at home to clear it with him personally. He got off the phone and said that Armstrong sounded a little concerned about something and would call right back.

They waited and Armstrong called back after twenty minutes and told Stuyvesant three things: first, his mother's health had taken a sudden turn for the worse, therefore second, he wanted to be flown out to Oregon that afternoon, therefore third, the meeting with Reacher and Neagley would have to be short and it would have to be delayed two hours while he packed.

So Reacher and Neagley went to Froelich's office to wait some more, but it had already been taken over by the new guy. The little plant was gone. Furniture had been moved. Things had been changed around. All that remained of Froelich was a faint trace of her perfume in the air. So they went back to the reception area and sprawled in the leather chairs. Watched the muted television. It was tuned to a news channel, and they saw Froelich die all over again, silently and in slow motion. They saw part of Armstrong's subsequent statement. They saw Bannon interviewed outside the Hoover Building. They didn't ask for the sound to be turned up. They knew what he would be saying. They watched football highlights from the Thanksgiving Day games. Then Stuyvesant called them back to his office.

His secretary wasn't there. She was clearly enjoying a long weekend at home. They walked through the empty area and sat down in front of Stuyvesant's immaculate desk while he ran through the rules of engagement.

"No physical contact," he said.

Reacher smiled. "Not even a handshake?"

"I guess a handshake is OK," Stuyvesant said. "But nothing else. And you are not to reveal anything about the current situation. He doesn't know, and I don't want him to find out from you. Is that understood?" Reacher nodded.

"Understood," Neagley said.

"Don't upset him and don't harass him. Remember who he is. And remember he's preoccupied with his mother."

"OK," Reacher said.

Stuyvesant looked away. "I've decided I don't want to know why you want to see him. And I don't want to know what happens afterwards, if anything. But I do want to say thanks for everything you've already done. Your audit will help us, and I think you probably saved us in Bismarck, and your hearts have been in the right place throughout, and I'm very grateful for all of that."

Nobody spoke.

"I'm going to retire," Stuyvesant said. "I'd have to fight to save my career now, and the truth is I don't like my career enough to fight for it."

"These guys were never your agents," Reacher said.

"I know that," Stuyvesant said. "But I lost two people. Therefore my career is over. But that's my decision and my problem. All I mean to say to you is I'm glad I got the chance to meet Joe's brother, and it was a real-pleasure working with you both."

Nobody spoke.

"And I'm glad you were there at the end for M. E."

Reacher looked away. Stuyvesant took the envelopes out of his pocket again.

"I don't know whether to hope you're right or wrong," he said. "About Wyoming, I mean. We'll have three agents and some local cops. That's not a lot of cover, if things turn out bad."

He passed the envelopes across the desk. "There's a car waiting downstairs," he said. "You get a one-way ride to Georgetown, and then you're on your own."

They went down in the elevator and Reacher detoured into the main hall. It was vast and dark and grey and deserted, and the cold marble echoed with his footsteps. He stopped underneath the carved panel and glanced up at his brother's name. Glanced at the empty space where Froelich's would soon be added. Then he glanced away and walked back and joined Neagley. They pushed through the small door with the wired glass porthole and found their car. The white tent was still in place across the sidewalk in front of Armstrong's house. The driver pulled up with the rear door tight against the contour and spoke into his wrist microphone. A second later Armstrong's front door opened and three agents stepped out. One walked forward through the canvas tunnel and opened the car door. Reacher got out and Neagley slid out beside him. The agent closed the door again and stood impassive on the kerb and the car drove away. The second agent held his arms out in a brief mime that they should stand still and be searched. They waited in the whitened canvas gloom. Neagley tensed while strange hands patted her down. But it was superficial. They barely touched her. And they missed Reacher's ceramic knife. It was hidden in his sock.

The agents led them inside to Armstrong's hallway and closed the door. The house was larger than it appeared from the outside. It was a big substantial place that looked like it had been standing for a hundred years and was good for maybe a hundred more. The hallway had dark antiques and striped paper on the walls and a clutter of framed pictures everywhere. There were rugs on the floors laid over thick wall-to-wall carpeting. There was a battered garment bag resting in a corner, presumably ready for the emergency trip to Oregon. "This way," one of the agents said.

He led them deep into the house and through a dog-leg in the hallway to a huge eat-in kitchen that would have looked at home in a log cabin. It was all pine, witha big table at one end and all the cooking equipment at the other. There was a strong smell of coffee. Armstrong and his wife were sitting at the table with heavy china mugs and four different newspapers. Mrs Armstrong was wearing a jogging suit and a sheen of sweat, like there might be a home gym in the basement. It looked like she wasn't going to Oregon with her husband. She had no make-up on. She looked a little tired and dispirited, like the events of Thanksgiving Day had altered her feelings in a fundamental way. Armstrong himself looked composed. He was wearing a clean shirt under a jacket with the sleeves pulled up over his forearms. No tie. He was reading the editorials from the New York Times and the Washington Post side by side. "Coffee?" Mrs Armstrong asked.

Reacher nodded and she stood up and walked into the kitchen area and pulled two more mugs off hooks and filled them. Walked back with one in each hand. Reacher couldn't decide if she was short or tall. She was one of those women who look short in flat shoes and tall in heels. She handed the mugs over without much expression. Armstrong looked up from his papers.

"I'm sorry to hear about your mother," Neagley said.

Armstrong nodded. "Mr Stuyvesant told me you want a private conversation," he said.

"Private would be good," Reacher said.

"Should my wife join us?"

"That depends on your definition of privacy."

Mrs Armstrong glanced at her husband. "You can tell me afterwards," she said. "Before you leave. If you need to."

Armstrong nodded again and made a show of folding his newspapers. Then he stood up and detoured to the coffee machine and refilled his mug.

"Let's go," he said.

He led them back to the dog-legged hallway and into a side room. Two agents followed and stood one each side of the door on the outside. Armstrong glanced out at them as if in apology and shut the door on them. Walked round and stood behind a desk. The room was set up like a study, but it was more recreational than for real. There was no computer. The desk was a big old item made from dark wood. There were leather chairs and books chosen for the look of their spines. There was panelling and an old Persian rug. There was an air freshener somewhere putting fragrance into the hush. There was a flamed photograph on the wall, showing a person of indeterminate gender standing on an ice floe. He or she was wearing an enormous padded down coat with a hood and thick mittens that reached the elbow. The hood had a big fur ruff that flamed the face tight. The face itself was entirely hidden by a ski mask and smoked yellow snow goggles. One of the elbow-high mittens was raised in greeting.

"Our daughter," Armstrong said. "We asked her for a photo, because we miss her. That's what she sent. She has a sense of humour."

He sat down behind the desk. Reacher and Neagley took a chair each.

"This all feels very confidential," Armstrong said.

Reacher nodded. "And in the end I think we'll all agree it should be kept confidential."

"What's on your mind?"

"Mr Stuyvesant gave us some ground rules," Reacher said. "I'm going to start breaking them right now. The Secret Service intercepted six threatening messages against you. The first came in the mail eighteen days ago. Two more came in the mail subsequently and three were hand-delivered."

Armstrong said nothing.

"You don't seem surprised," Reacher said.

Armstrong shrugged. "Politics is a surprising business," he said.

"I guess it is," Reacher said. "All six messages were signed with a thumbprint. We traced the print to an old guy in California. His thumb had been amputated and stolen and used like a rubber stamp."

Armstrong said nothing.

"The second message showed up in Stuyvesant's own office. Eventually it was proved that a surveillance technician named Nendick had placed it there. Nendick's wife had been kidnapped in order to coerce his actions. He was so frightened of the danger to her posed by his inevitable interrogation that he went into some kind of a coma. But we're guessing she was already dead by then anyway."

Armstrong was silent.